


What We Wrought

by thetaubadel



Category: Percy Jackson RPG, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Percy Jackson RPG - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:12:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetaubadel/pseuds/thetaubadel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years in the future, the world is a different place than today. Camp Half-Blood is a crater, the world knows and fears Half-Bloods, and the Eternal Leader keeps an ever vigilant eye on a North America under his tyrannical control. Half-bloods live in fear and secrecy, the entirety of this grim future their fault. A small, dedicated few, though, reach out, searching for a way to bring everything back to normal, to return the world to a place free from fear.</p><p>To bring back Olympus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

PRECURSOR

Cold street lights reflected on rain-slick streets. The last droplets of the day's rainstorm dribbled from the branches of the park's trees onto a pebble path. A slight wind blew through the nearby playground, causing the swings to squeak and screech in their unoiled freedom. Across the street from the park, an all-night diner's neon sign threw pink light through the park like a dying sun.  
The figure in the park stared across at the diner, the hood of his dirty sweatshirt pulled heavy over his face. He wore a long, beige jacket that fell to his knees. It was ragged and stained with motor oil, road grime and mud. His jeans and brown work boots were equally worn. His sweatshirt was half-unzipped, revealing a once-orange shirt beneath. The figure zipped it the rest of the way with a gloved hand and coughed.  
His face bore a heavy blonde beard and was framed by matted hair of a slightly darker shade. A series of long scars ran from his left temple to the opposite corner of his nose, crossing his eyebrow and tranforming it into a bizzare checkerboard of hair and mottled flesh. His blue eyes flashed from the depths of his shadows as he stared at the diner. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a McDonald's napkin and unfolded it. A hastily scribbled note glared up at him in the pink light. He reread it for the hundredth time, then flicked his wrist. The napkin was engulfed in flames, and the figure dropped it. He looked around and stalked across the street.  
He flipped off the taxi that nearly hit him, but remained silent. He hopped over a street-side planter and pushed through the chrome-and-glass door to the diner. He made note of the counter area on opposite the bank of windows on one side of the diner. A row of booths sat under the windows, and tables dominated the intervening space. A few off-duty cabbies ate in one booth, an elderly Asian couple sat at the bar and a single individual sat in the far corner. A college-aged waitress, red-headed and tired-looking, leaned against the counter on the far side of the bar. She barely glanced up as he crossed the restaurant and sat down in the booth nearest the far individual.  
The individual in question was a Chinese man in a suit, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a copy of Time magazine. He had his dark hair combed over to the side and his fingernails were perfectly cut and manicured. There was a badge on the table before him. The figure gave him a cursory glance and sat down.  
The man sipped his coffee again and set it down carefully. Without a word, he stood, picked up his badge and walked around to the figure's booth and sat down opposite him. He carefully dogearred the copy of Time and set it on the table. He reached into his jacket to attach the badge to his belt, momentarily flashing the pair of heavy handguns holstered under his arms. He adjusted the jacket and folded his hands before him.  
The figure grunted. “Is the badge real?”  
The man in the suit turned his head. “Does that matter?”  
“I don't rightly know,” the figure stroked his beard.  
“It is real.”  
“Is it yours?”  
“No. You don't look particularly well, Chris.”  
Chris was silent for a moment, then spoke. His voice was a growl. “None of us are, Wu. 'Cept for you and Joss and Em, far as I've seen.”  
“Have you seen the others?”  
“A few. Maybe half a dozen.”  
“More than I,” the man in the suit adjusted his hands. The waitress approached their table.  
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?” she droned.  
“Another coffee, please,” Wu said. He glanced at Chris.  
“A roast beef sandwich, fries, gravy, a Coke, scrambled eggs, a hamburger, onion rings, toast and a coffee,” Chris said. The woman raised her eyebrows and looked the grimy man up and down. Chris reached into a pocket and tossed down a wad of cash. He leaned forward.  
“And whatever bottle your boss keeps in his drawer for special occassions. And your phone.”  
Chris scratched his nose and leaned back again. The waitress nodded and snatched up the money.  
Ptolemy Wu raised an eyebrow. “I suppose how you came by that money is off the table?”  
“Do I ask where you get your money?”  
“I kill people for a living,” Wu raised an eyebrow. “And you?”  
“This and that,” Chris tapped a gloved hand on the table. “What have you seen since?”  
“Since what?”  
Chris raised his mutilated eyebrow. Wu waved a hand vaguely. “This and that. Not much. The monsters...”  
“Are gone, mostly, yeah.” Chris said. “The gods?”  
“Signs, sometimes,” Wu said. “Nothing more.”  
Chris sighed. “We royally fucked it up, didn't we?”  
“Did we have much of an option?” Ptolemy looked up at the waitress, who had returned with their drinks. He thanked her as Chris guzzled half the Coke in a swig.  
“No, we didn't,” Chris said. “I've heard a few contacts in China saying their myths are still around. Scandinavia too. Africa entirely.”  
“But nothing else,” Wu leaned forward. “No Greek, no Roman, no Middle Eastern, nothing New World. Nothing.”  
“There's us,” Chris said.  
“There is that,” Wu said. “Any progress at fixing it?”  
“What is there to fix? We destroyed it. Shattered it apart.”  
They sat in silence. “Have you been back to camp?” Chris finally asked.  
“Yes. It is the same as when we left.”  
“Still a crater,” Chris shook his head.  
“Well, minus the bodies,” Wu sipped his coffee. “The government has a facility there, trying to figure out what happened.”  
“UP facility?”  
“Now, perhaps,” Wu said. “Now that UP is a thing. Not when I saw it.”  
“Damn,” Chris hissed. “That was my next stop. Can't rightly walk up to Unexplained Phenomena with my arms and readings.”  
“You do make the scanners go tick,” Wu said. The waitress approached with Chris food and a large bottle of scotch, which was only half-full. Chris thanked her and began eating with gusto. Wu watched with disgust.  
“You are an animal.”  
“My metabolism,” Chris said, mouth full.  
“I know,” Wu shook his head. “It is still rather disgusting.”  
Chris polished off the burger and fries and chugged the remaining Coke. “Noted. So, why'd you call me here?”  
Wu shook his head. “I didn't call you here.”  
Chris shovelled eggs into his mouth. “I got a note a week ago, signed by you. Telling me to be here. That you had info.”  
“I did no such thing.” Wu looked about. The only movement in the diner was one of the cabbies, standing to go to the washroom.  
“Sure ya did,” Chris glared. “Don't fuck with me Wu.”  
Ptolemy stared out the window. He slowly reached across the table and wrapped his hand around a steak knife. “I think it is best if we go.”  
Chris glanced out the window. On the other side of the park, he could just make out the movement of several vans. He grabbed a napkin and wiped his mouth. “Set-up, isn't it?”  
Wu nodded. “I got a note from you.”  
Chris sighed. The cabbie was walking past their table. Wu raised his eyesbrows. Chris nodded.  
Wu spun in place and drove the knife into the cabbie's chest. Blood exploded out in the torrent as Wu stabbed two more times. The cabbie twisted as he fell, drawing a gun from his jacket pocket. Chris' hand flashed out faster than sight and knocked the gun away. The other cabbies shot to their feet, drawing guns. One pulled a badge from inside his vest.  
“Unexplained Phenomena Department! Get on the ground immediately! We have the right to put you down in accordance with the Half-Blood Act of 2013!”  
Wu raised his blood-slick hands and dropped the knife. Chris sighed and raised his hands. The cabbies slid from the booth and the Asian couple screamed. Chris glanced at them.  
“Shut up for a second, would you?” he said, grinning. Suddenly, he blurred out of sight. Wu dropped to the ground as the cabbies opened fire.  
The farthest cabbie stopped suddenly as he was engulfed by flames from nowhere. Wu rolled from under the table, opening fire. Two cabbies dropped to the ground, their heads pulped messes. The last unloaded the remainder of his clip to no effect. Suddenly, his head caved in to an invisible force, like a melon beneath a truck tire. Chunks of brainy viscera rained against the window. Chris blurred back into view, panting.  
“Haven't run that fast in a while,” he said. He glanced at the Asian couple. “Now you can scream.”  
The pair ran from the diner. Wu toed a corpse. “Why do they always send the worst teams for me? The ones with no training?”  
“No powers, no powersuits, man,” Chris said.  
“But you were here,” Wu said.  
Chris glanced out the window. “Weren't there only two vans before?”  
Wu glanced as well. On the far side of the park, a small cavalcade of vehicles parked in the shadows. He sighed.  
The waitress poked her head from the kitchen. Chris glanced at her and raised a bloody finger to his lips. “Go and hide. This is about to get messy.”  
The waitress nodded. Suddenly, the diner was flooded by light.  
“Christopher Tauabdel and Ptolemy Wu,” a voice from a megaphone called. “Lay down your weapons and submit to UP custody immediately.”  
Wu carefully reloaded his pistol. “Shall we?”  
Christopher carefully pulled off his gloves, revealing his metal hands.  
“We shall.”


	2. REACTION 1_The Hermit

REACTION ONE_The Hermit 

The cabin was a small affair of wood and polymer siding. Once an RV, it had been parked in the woods and built around over the years. First there was the porch, patched time and again in the years since its construction. Then the garage had been built, shingles falling off in clumps. After a falling tree had ripped out most of the back wall, Ava had felt it only right to build an extension off the back, which now housed the living area and bedroom. Interior plumbing had been added with the addition of a septic tank and well, and there was even a small cellar beneath the addition. Still, the thing had wheels and an engine and, if she really needed to, she could hop behind the controls and drive herself away from the woods.  
Everyday, she wondered if that day would be the day. She had a TV, an old CRT with bunny ears that only picked up the one local station that still broadcast longwave, but she knew of a few of the Half-Bloods who had been picked up in the past ten years, and wondered when the UP omnicopters would light up the woods around her and powersuited troops would shatter her quiet existence. But each day passed quietly as the one before. She would go about her routines, driving into the small coastal town nearest her home to work cleaning empty houses for the tourists who summered in the village. On Fridays, she would go to the market and get food. Aside from that, she kept her head down, did not speak to many people, did not draw attention to herself.  
Still, she thought, one day something would snap. She always assumed it would be her own doing, some mistake she made. She never thought it would be anything but her own oversight that would lead to her dismissal from her quiet life. That is, until the knock came at her door.  
The forest was dark. Moonlight filtered through the high reaches of the pillar-like pine trees. Crickets buzzed away and somewhere near the pond down the hill, a frog croaked heartily. Ava was half-asleep in her bed, in the comfortable, dreamy realm between wakefulness and sleep. She could hear moths being fried against the bug zapper that hung on the porch, but even that carried some music in that dreamy state. She barely registered the sound of car tires rolling up the dirt road to her home. She could only barely hear the voices as they approached her front door.  
The heavy knocks, though, jolted her from sleep. Swinging her feet from bed, she reached instinctually for the dagger that lay on her bedside table. No one ever visited her out here, save for the very rare deliveryman, and never this late. She felt vulnerable and exposed in her pajamas, and wished for something, anything, to cover what she expected was the inevitable shotgun blast through the door.  
She crept across the cabin to the front door, what was once just the door to the RV. Carefully, she slid back bolts, unlocked locks and unchained the door. Whoever was on the other side knocked heavily again. Ava placed her hand on the latch and clutched the dagger. Slowly, she opened the door.  
Covered in drying blood, two men stood on the other side of the door. They held a heavy duffel bag between them. One was dressed in what had been a finely tailored suit, before the bloodstains and tears had destroyed it. There was blood under his manicured fingernails.  
The other man looked like some wild, mountain man. He wore only a torn, hooded sweatshirt, an orange t-shirt and jeans. One of his brown boots was missing and his arms were coated to the elbows in blood and soot. He reached up to his beard with his spare hand and stroked it.  
“Hey sis,” he said.  
Ava blinked. “Chris...Chris, I told you not to come back here.”  
“I brought friends,” Chris said.  
Ava glanced at the other man. “Ptolemy. You're covered in blood.”  
“We had problems,” Ptolemy said.  
“We dealt with them,” Chris said.  
Ava stuck her head out the door. “Where'd you get the van?”  
“Found it,” Chris said.  
“It has a UP logo on it.”  
“They weren't using it anymore,” Chris replied with a shrug.  
Ava frowned and waved the dagger at him. “There could be a ghost in it.”  
“We dealt with the trackers in it,” Wu said. “And all the ghosts in these too.”  
He toed the duffel bag. It clicked with a metallic charm. Ava glanced at it. “What's in there?”  
“What would UP be ghosting?” Chris asked.  
Ava blinked. “You stole their guns?”  
“And ammo, and their trackers and a whole bunch of things besides,” Wu replied.  
“There's three more bags in the van,” Chris said.  
“We require a place to wash up,” Wu said.  
Ava growled. “And you thought of me first?”  
“No,” Chris said. “We thought of Em and Joss, but they have kids and were further away.”  
“But you don't mind bringing them down on me?”  
“No one will be coming down on anyone,” Chris said. “We dealt with the trackers.”  
Ava blinked. Finally, she stepped aside. The pair entered and dropped the bag by the door. Chris removed his boot as Ava shut the door and locked it.  
“Did anyone see you driving up here?” Ava asked.  
“No,” Wu said. “I have experience driving through the woods hiding from the police.”  
“You have no right to be smart,” Ava said, turning to him. “You started this all in the first place. You should be happy I'm letting you in at all.”  
“We all agreed on this,” Chris said. “Don't blame him.”  
“Not all of us,” Ava tossed the dagger on the counter nearby. “Shower's through there.”  
Ptolemy moved to the door and opened it. “Thank you,” he said, “for allowing us into your home.”  
Ava watched him shut the bathroom behind him. Chris had collapsed into a worn, leather chair and rubbed his feet. “Those shoes suck for running,” he said.  
Ava leaned against the wall. “What are you doing here?”  
Chris sighed. “They had info. About everything. But not enough. We need help.”  
“Help,” Ava sighed. “For what?”  
“Jailbreak.”  
“Jailbreak?”  
Chris sighed. “There's a facility, right? Where they've been keeping the ones they catch. But none of us on the outside know where it is.”  
“So?”  
“So,” Chris said. “There's someone on the inside who does. Someone not in the facility. Someone in jail.”  
Ava blinked. “No. No. He's...”  
“Crazy. Absolutely fucking batshit. Violent, too. But he saw the facility, back in the beginning. Before they knew how seriously to take us. He escaped from one of the omnicopters, remember? It was above the facility at the time. Their info tells us that. Thing is, they don't know who he is. That he's in prison now.”  
“So we're gonna break him out?” Ava shook her head. “Chris, this is crazy.”  
“Once we have everyone back, we might be able to find a way to give Ptolemy his powers back, reverse what we did...bring everything back. End this once and for all.”  
“That's a big if, Chris, a big might.”  
“It's our fault,” Chris said. “All of it. The Leader, UP, the techies, all of it. We forgot that the portal is two ways. It's our duty to send them back where they came from.”  
“Even if it means starting everything over again?”  
“It was better than mortals living under the Eternal Reign of Our Glorious Leader, innit?”  
Ava blinked. “You're serious about this?”  
“It was my idea,” Chris said. “My fault. Damn it if it wasn't my fault, all the way back to the very damn beginning.”  
Ava blinked. The water in the other room turned off. “You believe that, don't you?”  
Chris nodded. The door opened and Wu leaned in the opening, tying his tie. He looked at them. “So, when do we start?”  
Ava looked at him. “How many guns do you have?”


	3. REACTION 2_The Prisoner

REACTION TWO_The Prisoner

The cell was dark. In that place, it was a statement of fact and not a statement of differing states of being. There was only dark in the cell. Sometimes, the dark was twilight, and the prisoner could see the edges of the world around him. Sometimes, it was pitch and thick as tar. In the early days, he had stumbled about in the darkness, bumping his hip against the sink, his knees on the bed, his toes and head on the walls. Now, though, he owned the night. He knew every inch of that solitary confinement cell better than he had known any place on earth.  
He wasn't always in the dark cell, but he usually was. This was solitary confinement, and he earned his place there often enough. When he was in general lock-up, people made him angry. Once, he had been locked up for shanking another inmate with a shattered commisary tray. He had shattered the tray over the head of another inmate, but that would have only gotten him a slap on the wrist. He made sure to stab the other fucker just to get locked up tighter. He liked solitary.  
This time around, he had strangled a guard with a garotte made of the lining of his wool prison blanket. The man was in critical condition, as the prisoner understood it. The guard goddamned deserved it, too, the prisoner thought. He had looked at him out of the corner of his eye. That was rude. If you're gonna look at a man sideways, the prisoner thought, look at him dead-on.  
He grinned at that, in the darkness. The prisoner rolled his bulk over on the narrow metal slab that was his bed in the cell. The prisoner hadn't always been the massive bulk of muscle and tendon that he was now. Once, he had been a lean teenager. Those years had been left behind ten years before, when his home had been destroyed before his very eyes, in a storm partly of his own design. He still remembered the flames, the bodies, the explosion, the green lights in the sky and on the ground. His grin faded.  
That had been the day he had lost it all. Not all of them had, and that was the unfair bit. It seemed random, who had kept their powers and who didn't. Who had died and who didn't. It was unfair, that Chris and Joss and Zach got to keep what made them special while He and Wu and a shit ton of others became mortals. That he didn't even make the UP officer's little Half-Blood detectors go tick. It made him livid, made him want to snap necks.  
Didn't matter now anyways. Now he could snap a man's neck in a single hand, and throttle another with the other. Years in prison had made him hard as stone and big as a mountain. Layers of scar tissue and callouses had turned his flesh to a shell. His thick beard clung in dark curls around his face, and his hair was buzzed short, revealing a series of scars across his scalp. His teeth were crooked and broken from fights, and his nose bent at a strange angle.  
His flesh was a canvas of prison tattoos. A teardrop under his eye, barbed wire around his arm, a spiderweb on his elbow. His back was a wide canvas of birds in flight, his chest wreathed in chains. His knuckles bore the words “HALB” and “BLUD”. He wasn't German, but couldn't find a good way to make “Half-Blood” fit. Most important to him, though, were the tally marks on his wrists. Twenty-eight ticks, twenty-eight dead bodies in his wake. Twenty-eight life sentences he was serving for murder. With good behaviour, he could have knocked it down to twenty-seven.  
He was serving fifty-eight sentences now, and loving every minute. Somewhere out there, the Glorious Leader was paying for his three square meals a day and for the hospital bills of each man he shattered.  
He had become accustomed to silence and violence. In populace was the violence. In solitary was the silence. Which made it all the stranger when he heard the gunfire outside the steel door of his cell.  
He stood, rolling his neck. They wouldn't give him a blanket or a pillowcase, but he did have a paper-thin pillow. As he heard the muffled pop-pop of high-powered rifles on the other side of the door, he lifted the pillow and ripped it in half with a casual motion. He heard screams too, as he wrapped the foam and cloth around his fists.  
There was a metallic thud on the door. The prisoner turned and stretched his arms. The room was quiet for a moment, and suddenly the door began to glow red around the circle plate that represented the lock's location. The red spot grew wider and hotter and brighter until it was as wide around as a basketball. There was a quiet moment, and suddenly a metallic fist blew through the heated still, faster than a blink. Light streamed in through the whole, and the prisoner blinked to get his day vision back.  
The fist withdrew and the door was pulled open. A ragged figure was silhouetted by the light.  
“Chris,” the prisoner growled. “What the fuck are you fucking doing here?”  
“Iceus,” Chris turned his head and raised his arm. A gout of flame engulfed someone out of sight. A scream rolled from around the corner. “Get the fuck out here and help, damn it.”  
“About fucking time,” Iceus roared and barreled towards the door. Chris blurred out of the way and Iceus exploded into the prison hallway. A roar of guards with riot shield were holding the line to his right, and Wu and Ava were leaning from around corners to his left, firing into the crowd. Everyone stopped when they saw the prisoner.  
He looked either way and grinned. “About fucking time,” he screamed, and rolled towards the guards like a mountain on wheels. The guards took a moment too long to respond, and the prisoner fell upon them in a fury.  
Minutes later, the prisoner stood, bruised and bleeding, upon a pile of shattered bodies. He stomped down on the head of one of the guards over and over again, teeth and bone shattering under his heel, blood and brains flying out in a spray. The prisoner laughed, wiped his chin with the inside of his palm and stopped.  
“Motherfuckers didn't even try,” Iceus said. “Motherfuckers just let me break them.”  
The others walked over, weapons slung over their shoulders. Chris knelt and began rooting through the guards belongings. “We have two minutes to get the hell out of dodge before UP shows up.”  
Iceus sniffed. “Get going then.”  
Ava blinked. “What are you talking about, Iceus?”  
“Get going,” Iceus replied. “I kinda like prison. It suits me. Plus, I see six dead men on the floor. That's six tally marks to add to my wrists.”  
He stepped forward, looming over Ava. “Not to mention,” he screamed. “I don't want to be anywhere near you motherfucking half-blooded pieces of trash.”  
Wu stepped forward. “Watch your language around the lady.”  
“You motherfucking fake fucking classy, fucking redneck, fucking piece of shit,” Iceus spun on his heels. “You don't fucking speak to me! You don't have a fucking right to talk to me! This is on you! I am the way I am because of you!”  
“I did not make you this way,” Wu said calmly.  
“Oh, bullshit,” Iceus said. “Yeah, I might not be fucked in my noggin cause of you directly. That's from fucking having my life, my entire identity, ripped the fuck away from me. Oh wait, that was you.”  
“Shut up, Iceus,” Chris replied. “We just saved your ass?”  
“From what?” Iceus turned. “Three fucking square meals a day and all the meat I can punch?”  
“From boredom,” Chris said.  
“We need you for a sure suicide mission,” Ava said.  
“Where we are all going to be required to kill many, many people,” Wu added.  
Iceus stroked his beard. “Like, dead-dead.”  
“Like the fellow whose head you just turned into a paste.”  
“Why didn't you open with that?” Iceus grinned. “Let's get going!”  
Iceus strode past them. The others looked between one another.  
“You don't even know where we're going,” Ava said.  
“The Half-Blood holding tanks,” Iceus turned his head. “Why else would you need me? Now are we gonna go highjack an omnicopter or what?”


	4. REACTION 3_The Omni

REACTION THREE_The Omni

“Highjack an omnicopter? Highjack an omnicopter?” Ava shook her head. “Where in the gods' names are we gonna get an omnicopter?”  
“There's an elevator to the roof right there,” Iceus said, gesturing down the hall. “It's Thursday. Prisoner transfers on Thursdays. There'll be one up there.”  
“One minute till the fuzz get here,” Chris warned. “They'll be the good ones too.”  
“An elevator right there and a shitload of powersuiters on the roof guarding the damn thing,” Ava shook her head. “You've gone crazier than I thought, Iceus.”  
“You shut your damn mouth about things you don't know fucking nothing about,” Iceus growled.  
“Language around the lady, Iceus,” Ptolemy scolded, rooting through the pouches on the guards' bulletproof vests.  
“Right, sorry,” Iceus shrugged his mountainous shoulders and toed the ground. “My temper gets the best of me sometimes.”  
“Forty-five seconds,” Chris said.  
“Where's this omnicopter?” Ptolemy asked, standing.  
“The roof, dipshit,” Iceus pointed at the elevator. “Top of the line.”  
“How many men are likely to be guarding it?”  
“Ten,” Iceus shrugged. “Eleven. Hell if I know.”  
“All in powersuits?”  
“Yeah.”  
“No matter, a headshot is a headshot,” Ptolemy looked about. “You have all done your duties, now please allow me to do mine.”  
“Yeah,” Chris said.  
“What's your duty, Wu? Being a ponce?” Iceus asked.  
Ptolemy grinned and turned towards the elevator. He adjusted his tie. “I kill people for a living.”  
Ptolemy strode to the elevator and before the others could question him, he boarded it, turned a pilfered key and waved as the doors shut. Being surrounded by demigods again made Ptolemy feel inferior, which was a hard task. Ptolemy had a healthy respect for his skills as a professional. He watched the elevator numbers tick slowly towards the roof and checked the supplies in his possession. Two smoke grenades, two Sig Sauer MK25 handguns, ammunition, a combat knife and a ticker, which would be useless. Not much to use against powersuits, but he had faced rougher odds.  
He knew he only had one chance to make this work. The others would follow him up the moment they could. He had, if he was lucky, ten seconds to dispatch the powersuits before he was either overcome or the cavalry came to steal his fun. He checked that his home-made magazine clips were loose beneath his jacket and stretched.  
The elevator slid to a halt and the doors slid open. Sure enough, eleven men in gleaming black-and-blue powersuits spun to face him. The suits of armor were disturbingly Greek in their design, if Greek hoplites had been cyborgs covered in ammunition pouches and laser weapons. They raised their weapons and aimed at Ptolemy. The nearest barked a command, his mouth unimpeded by armour. A powersuit's one true weakness.  
“Identify yourself immediately,” he said.  
Ptolemy grinned and dropped a small canister at his feet. The powersuiters glanced down in unison.  
“Grenade!” one yelled, as the elevator exploded into a cell of smoke. The powersuiters opened fire, their gunshots a series of high calibre explosions that filled the air with the acrid scent of black powder smoke. After a moment, they stopped, and the nearest one approached the wall of smoke and disappeared into its depths.  
There was a sudden screech, and Ptolemy exploded from the elevator, his knife through the powersuiter's mouth. Blood spewed in stringy, saliva-mixed streams from behind the soldier's lips. The man was before Ptolemy like a shield, and as the others opened fire again, their shots were absorbed by the powerarmor with no more damage than a pellet gun. As Ptolemy approached the next soldier, his arm shot up and he fired six shots in quick succession, each entering the man's mouth. The powersuiter's helmet caught the shots and ricocheted them around, turning the man's head to a gooey putty that dripped in chunks across his armor. The man collapsed as Ptolemy threw the weight of his shield at another powersuiter and rolled another smoke grenade forward.  
Ptolemy rolled into the center of the smoke and fired two shots with deadly precision, blind as he may be. Ptolemy dropped to the ground in time with the pair of death screams, and bullets screamed through the air above him. Rolling to the side, he wrapped a bent arm around a powersuiter's knee and shot to his feet. The powersuiter was driven to the ground and Ptolemy emptied his clip into the man's face. Releasing his clip, his hand shot into his jacket and a mag slid into place from his special dispenser. He fell to the ground again, firing another shot and hearing it connect with armour. He swore, grabbed the recently fallen powersuiter and rolled the body on top of him. Shots pinged against the back of the man's armour. Ptolemy stared up at a mouth that had been torn apart by his shot. A tooth, clinging by only the barest thread of flesh, snapped away at the shift of gravity and bounced off Ptolemy's face.  
The shots slowed and Ptolemy pushed the body away and shot to his feet. The smoke was dispersing, and he could see the shapes of the seven remaining men. With a flashing movement, the knife flew from his hand and pulled another man to his grave. Ptolemy reached into his jacket and unholstered his second pistol, he dove forward and rolled, shots zipping above his head. Pistoning to his feet, he fired three shots as he cartwheeled through the air. Two more men collapsed. Ptolemy found his feet and turned a pirhouette. Kicking up a loose ammo pouch with a toe, he flicked it forward in an arch towards the last four powersuiters. His hand shot up and he fired. The pouch exploded, throwing two men off their feet and unsteadying another.  
Ptolemy strode forward, calmly putting down the two prone men. He raised his hand and shot the unsteady one in the face. Only one was left. The man shook and his hand came up. He fired a shot and Ptolemy was lifted off his feet, the shot striking his chest with the force of a small truck.  
Ptolemy lay still, facedown on the ground. The powersuiter strode forward and stood above him. “Shit,” the man said. “Musta been a halfie.”  
Ptolemy rolled over and fired up. The man's head pulped inside his helmet. “You would be correct.”  
The powersuiter collapsed in a gurgle. Ptolemy stood and rubbed his chest. It was the only use he was going to get from the shield generator he and Chris had looted from the UP troops that had attacked them in the diner, but it had been well worth the last look on the powersuiter's face. He glanced at his prize, the omnicopter on the pad nearby. The heavy, dragonfly shaped flying machine gleamed black in the dying sun. Behind him, the elevator dinged. Ptolemy glanced over his shoulder as his half-blood friends stepped from within.  
“Holy shit,” Chris whistled. “Remind me never to fuck with you. Like, ever. Even a little bit. You didn't even need my help at the diner, did you?”  
“It wasn't polite to leave you out, was it?” Ptolemy wiped his hands on the ammo pouch of the nearest corpse. “So, who can fly the omnicopter?”  
The group looked between one another. Iceus grinned. “I'm a pilot. Got my certification on a month of good behaviour. Logged sim time and everything.”  
Ava blinked. “And we can trust you behind the wheel of an anti-grav flying machine?”  
Iceus held up two fingers. “I promise I won't drive us into the ground. Scout's honour.”  
“Were you ever a Boy Scout?” Ava asked.  
“I wouldn't damn well kill myself, would I?” Iceus growled. “Fucking surrounded by mistrustful fucks, all the fucking lot of them.”  
“You are a convict, Iceus,” Chris said. “Where are we going? Preferably at top clip.”  
“We got a couple of folks to see before we go to the facility,” Ptolemy replied. “We are out of deghosters, and this omni will have a big one on it.”  
“Who are we going to see?”  
“The garden.”


	5. REACTION 4_The Gardener

REACTION FOUR_The Gardener

The omnicopter buzzed high above the ocean. Its wings were a glowing, blue blur in the air. It darted with insectoid jerkiness, but whether that was by design or the actions of the pilot was hard to tell.  
To the west of the southward flying omnicopter, beaches and coastal cliffs rose from the near-horizon. Moonlight reflected in strange patterns off the waves below, creating jagged, crystalline images in the display monitors of the omnicopter's cockpit. The passengers rode in silence.  
Hours passed, and finally the omni darted back towards shore, zipping over autumnal forests and farm country. A cold wind blowed through the transport. Chris pulled his sweatshirt tighter around him. Ptolemy grabbed a strap that hung from the ceiling and stood, pulling himself into the co-pilot chair. He grabbed a headset and pulled it on.  
“Three clicks straight ahead,” he spoke. “You'll see a hill with an old windmill on it. Land there.”  
“I'm on it,” Iceus said. “Just like when you gave me the fucking directions ten minutes ago. And an hour ago. And two hours ago.”  
“Does no one else find it weird that there's no one behind us?” Ava asked, glancing out the door of the omnicopter.  
“The ghost won't relay info until we land,” Ptolemy said. “It might not be able to find us again otherwise. Which won't be an issue, because where we are going, ghosts can not escape.”  
Chris scratched his beard. “Where exactly are we going?”  
Ptolemy glanced over. “Gridley.”  
“Jamie?” Chris said. “What do we need with Jamie?”  
“When it happened, some of us lost out powers, right? And some of us kept them. And some of us had our powers overcharged. Still others, the very lucky few, had their powers altered, or gained new ones,” Ptoelmy said. “Jamie is one of those.”  
“Real fucking fair, that,” Iceus grumbled. “Asshole fucking piece of shit...”  
“What can he do?” Ava asked.  
“Well, with Olympus gone, Hades disappeared too,” Ptolemy said. “But the souls didn't. That's how the Eternal Leader got ghosts. He binds the souls of the dead to objects, and they tell who, what, where, when and how that object is being used.”  
“Okay,” Chris said. “And Jamie?”  
“He can see the ghosts and rip them off the objects. He even generates a sort of anti-ghost field,” Ptolemy leaned back. “The ghosts can't communicate while they're near him. For all we know, he may have always had this power, there was just never a use for it before.”  
“So he's gonna rip the ghost out of the omni,” Iceus grinned. “Letting us drive it right down the Eternal fucking Leader's throat. Right fucking on.”  
“We're not driving it down anyone's throat,” Ptolemy said. “We're going to the facility.”  
“Same damn thing.”  
They were silent for a minute. “Jamie and I don't quite see eye-to-eye,” Chris said.  
Ptolemy glanced over. “How do you mean?”  
“I ran into him about five years ago,” Chris explained. “He's working with Network Zero, the Reactionaries, all those groups. A sort of supplier. I was riding the line with the Zeroes, and wound up meeting with Gridley. Anyways, he pointed a gun at my head. I had to zip out of there real quick. Haven't spoken to him or the Network since.”  
“He has calmed substantially,” Ptolemy said. He scratched his cheek. “You will see.”  
Below them, a hill appeared in the red-and-gold forest. A tall, steel-and-wood construction topped with a creaky metal windmill was silhouetted against the night sky. Iceus descended slowly, the omni hardly moving the leaves of the nearest trees as it settled upon the top of the hill. With practiced ease, Iceus flicked switches and cooled the engines as the others hopped out. Behind them, the matte-black steel of the omnicopter suddenly became clear as ice. Iceus hopped out.  
“Cloaking is still fucking up,” he said. “They won't see it from above, if they happen to fly by. But if they get close on foot, no such goddamned luck.”  
“We won't be long,” Ava said.  
“Fucking right,” Iceus said, beating a fist on his bare chest.  
“Alright,” Ptolemy said. “Follow me.”  
Ptolemy led the group down the hill, finding a thin and mostly overgrown path through the forest. Aside from some tire-treads from a couple of mountain bikes, there was no evidence of any human contact with the area. Moonlight filtered through the leaves above, and the forest was a gray-and-black shadow beneath. Crossing a narrow creak over a crumbling and broken foot-bridge, the group saw a slight flicker between the trees, a light like that from a fire. Ptolemy pointed.  
“That will be him.”  
The group pushed farther through the trees. Ahead of them, they could see a mobile home through the trees. An ancient and rusty truck sat next to it, its functionality heavily in question. There was a garden to the left of the mobile home, pumpkin plants roiling and ready for harvesting within.To the right of the mobile home, a campfire roared. Next to it, sitting in a lawnchair with his back to them, was a single figure.  
He wore a heavy flannel jacket with wool trim at the collar and cuffs, jeans and hunting boots. A floppy wool hat was pulled low over his head, and he wore fingerless gloves. A hunting rifle leaned against one arm of the lawnchair and he poked the fire with a long stick. Leaning over, the figure grabbed a glass pipe from the top of a cooler next to him, lifted a lighter to it and inhaled deeply. After a moment, he breathed out, flipped open the cooler and pulled a beer from within.  
“See,” Ptolemy said. “He is much calmer.”  
“Yeah,” Chris said, glancing at the rifle. “Super mellow.”  
Ptolemy stepped from the woods, hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. “Jamie,” he called. “Jamie, my friend.”  
Ava glanced at Chris, shrugged and followed Ptolemy into the clearing. Iceus was hot on her heels. Chris swallowed and followed.  
Jamie Gridley turned his head. His eyes were glazed and red, but he shot to his feet with surprising rapidity, a grin on his face. “Wu! I wasn't expecting customers for another few days. Sorry to say I'm a bit low on stock, unless you need pumpkins.”  
Ptolemy chuckled. “That's not why I'm here. I brought friends.”  
Jamie glanced between them. “Ava, how've you been?”  
“A lot like you, actually,” she said, glancing at the mobile home.  
“Proud members of the mobile home community, yeah?” Jamie glanced at Iceus. “Have we met before? There's something about your face.”  
“It's me, you fucking shit, fucking ass,” Iceus said.  
Jamie took a step back and blinked. “Holy shit, Iceus. You're completely different. Prison's been good for you.”  
“Yeah, right,” Iceus sniffed and pushed past to the cooler. He shot a hand in and pulled out a beer. Jamie shrugged. “Sure, whatever, feel at home.”  
Chris stepped forward. “Jamie.”  
Jamie glanced at Chris, then looked at Ptolemy. “What are you here for, Wu?”  
“We stole an omnicopter and we need it deghosted,” Ptolemy explained.  
“You stole a what?”  
“An omnicopter,” Ava explained. “When we broke Iceus out of prison. We need it to attack a UP facility that we believe contains a bunch of Half-Bloods so that we can find a way to give Wu his powers back and reverse this whole messed up thing.”  
“And you need me to deghost it? That's all you need from me?” Jamie asked.  
“Yes,” Ptolemy said.  
Jamie shook his head and turned back to the fire. He held out his hands. “Man, you don't need a deghosting, you need an army. Any facility holding Half-Bloods will be locked down tighter than Mr. D's wine cupboard. No chance you can do it.”  
“Please,” Ava said. “If there's any chance we can free some of us.”  
“No way,” Jamie shook his head. “No. You'll get captured and questioned and they'll pump you full of madness until you talk, then I'll get omnis down on my ass. There's a reason I only do jobs for the underground railroad and I don't supply to the Reactionaries anymore.”  
“But we aren't mortals who only know a part of the whole story,” Chris stepped forward. “We can do this.”  
“Fuck you, Chris,” Jamie turned. “Fuck you. This was all your fucking idea in the first place. Strike that. This was all you, right back to the damn beginning. 'I fought a shadow monster on the Great Wall',” he mocked. “Fuck that and fuck you. None of this would have happened if it weren't for you.”  
“Leave him be, Jamie,” Ava said. “None of us were thinking. We were children and we made the judgment call of children. Open a door and its open both ways. None of us thought it through.”  
“At least I am trying to fix my mistakes,” Chris stepped forward. “How much pot do you grow? How much do you smoke? Is it enough to dull the memory of the fact that you voted for the plan? That you supported it. We all have a stake in this, Jamie.”  
A cold wind blew through the forest. Jamie blinked. He looked around. “Stay until morning,” he said. “You all have to see someone. Then, if you still want to do it, then I will deghost you, and you can die in your stupid, messiah-complex driven glory.”  
“See who?” Ptolemy asked.  
“Autumn.”


	6. REACTION 5_The Garden

REACTION FIVE_The Garden

“Welcome to the garden,” Jamie said.  
Where Jamie had led them the following morning could only be called a garden in the same way an ocean could be called a pond. Far in the woods, the place was some strange, constrained ecosystem. Beautiful flowers, huge ferns and berry bushes roiled for what looked like several acres in such a thick, tangled wildness that it seemed like some part of the age of dinosaurs had been torn from history and transplanted into the current day. The sun shone more brightly here, and the weather was many degrees warmer in some kind of perpetual summer.  
Interspersed amongst the flowers were outcroppings of cannabis plants that grew several times larger than a man. Ava and Chris shared a glance. Iceus sniffed the air. “Smells like the inside of a whorehouse. All flowery and shit.”  
“What's going on here?” Ptolemy asked.  
“Autumn's going on here,” Jamie said. “You'll see.”  
Jamie found a low and overgrown path through the garden and led them on. As they moved, they could practically see new plants bursting from the soil. Their autumn clothes seemed to cling to them in the heat, and the cloying scent of flowers and the too-sweet aroma of fruit threatened to make them faint.  
“She showed up about two years ago,” Jamie explained as they moved. “She was already pretty bad off. We made plans to get her out to Madagascar, like most of the other runners.”  
“Why send anyone to fucking Madagascar?” Iceus scoffed.  
“The Eternal Leader hasn't turned his eyes towards Africa yet, and the island and jungle and everything means Half-Bloods have a chance of setting up a defensive line before he shows up,” Jamie explained. “Anyways, we had everything lined up. She was gonna spend a few days here and then hop an old heli out to the ruins of Washington, a plane south to Miami and a shipping boat from there. By the time the heli came, though, she was already too far gone. Too rooted.”  
“What do you mean?” Ptolemy asked.  
Jamie stopped and pointed. “See for yourself.”  
The others followed Jamie's pointing finger. In the center of the garden, ringed by cherry trees that bowed low over it, was a mound of moss and wildflowers. Woody protrubances burst from the mound at strange angles, not so much branches as spines or horns. Dozens of brightly coloured birds roosted on the spines, and stared with keen intelligence at the interlopers.  
“Some of us lost our powers, and some of our powers went wild,” Jamie explained. “Autumn's chlorokinesis became something else entirely. For years, something grew inside her. By the time she got here, she had become something else entirely. And then she set down roots. The garden is Autumn. Autumn is the garden. In this place, she's like a god. And she's good for business. My weed is the best you can get, bar none.”  
“That lump is Autumn?” Chris asked.  
Jamie shrugged. Ava stepped forward and reached out. The birds simply watched her. “Can she hear us?”  
“I dunno,” Jamie said. “I brought you guys here to show you this because I need you to know what it will cost you to go out there. Not all of us can be saved, and not all of us are the same. You might get to that facility only to find everyone is like this...or worse.”  
Jamie leaned against a cherry tree. “In fact, knowing the Eternal Leader,” he said, “I figure worse is the more likely option. You're all gonna die out there...or, and this is not my favoured option, you'll all be made into Nightmares.”  
Chris hissed. “Talking about them calls them down.”  
“Not here,” Jamie said. “The rules don't apply in the garden. Here, even the Eternal Leader doesn't have a lot of sway. But you get it now, right? You have nothing left to save.”  
Iceus turned and stomped into the garden. Ptolemy folded his arms before him. Chris collapsed against a tree. Ava reached further and touched the mound.  
“Fuck,” Chris said. “Fuck. I never knew it was this bad. That we could be like this...”  
“Shh,” Ava said.  
“No,” Chris said. “If I had known ten years ago that this is how it would all turn out, with Ava as a stump, with everyone dead or locked up or turned into Nightmares...”  
“Shh,” Ava repeated.  
“You heard him, Nightmares can't hear us here,” Ptolemy said.  
“No,” Ava said. “Listen.”  
Everyone fell silent and did as she said. At first there was no noise. Then, they heard it. The insects were whirring and buzzing together, in some perfect unison. The bird calls became a melody. Even the wind through the leaves became something else.  
The mound stirred. At first it was a slow swell. Then, it expanded. The shell of moss cracked and split and the mound stood. Shapeless at first, a form of roots and dirt and flowers, it began to change. Dirt pulled itself tighter, roots moved like fingers and shaped it. The form slid forward, floating an inch above the ground and touched a cherry tree. The tree split and cracked and reformed, adding its mass to the whole. Grass climbed like worms from the ground, up the form and into it.  
There was a glow in the heart of the thing, which burned brighter and brighter. Finally, the glow exploded in a flash, and what was left standing before them was a creature not-quite human. Eight feet tall, it was humanoid: two legs, two arms, one head. However, that is where the resemblance ended. The creature bore no face, simply a blank slab of cherry wood. Flowers and moss fell down a neck formed of three intertwined branches to shoulders of dirt. An open chest cavity of hollow wood held a tiny garden of moss and flowers, which hovered above a pelvis of woven vines. Thousands of roots and fines hung from this latice like tentacles or a gown, depending on how one shifted their head. Its arms were braided wood and vine, its hands asymmetrical with uneven fingers. The creature hovered above the ground and gazed upon them. The birds that had roosted upon it before flitted from above and landed on its shoulders or in the cave of its chest. The creature gazed at them.  
“We are the garden,” the thing said in Autumn's voice. “You speak falsehoods.”  
“Autumn?” Chris shot to his feet.  
“Holy fucking shit,” Iceus said. “Haven't seen anything fucking like this since...”  
“Before...” Ava finished.  
“We have communed with the Deeproot of the world for a long time,” the voice rose from the creature. “Too long to still be your Autumn. We are they. The thing that replaced Pan. The monomyth of the Nature Goddess. Our roots are her's.”  
Jamie swallowed. “My gods.”  
The creature turned its head. “Still live, in another place. There is hope. If the pagan symbols still exist, so can they. If the other myths survive, so can they. But you will need help. Help to bring them back.”  
“Whose help?” Jamie asked.  
“The help of your brothers and sisters,” Autumn's voice grew sad. “Our brothers and sisters. And of hope. You have given up, Jamie Gridley. But the time has come to wake up. I have awoken, and so will the others. So must you. The Eternal Leader is not eternal. His time is coming. Save them.”  
Ptolemy stepped forward. “There's a way?”  
“There is always a way, but I do not know it,” the creature spoke. “I am the Avatar of the Mother, once Autumn, now Eternal Summer. I must go and find them, the surviving myths, and bring them here. Our time is coming.”  
Suddenly there was a bright flash, and the creature fell apart before their eyes. The garden grew quiet.  
“Well,” Chris said. “I guess that means that Autumn's on our side.”  
“I'll deghost you,” Jamie whispered. “But I'll do you one fucking better.”  
“What's that, then?” Iceus asked.  
“I'm coming with you.”


	7. REACTION 6_The Thinkers

REACTION SIX_The Thinkers

The facility was a single story building about an hour or two out of New York City. A perfect square, it had an omnicopter landing pad on the roof and barbed wire fences around it on three sides. The last side had a high, concrete wall that ended in two huge guard towers. Men with high-powered rifles and explosive devices manned the yard and wall. There was a road that ran up to a gate in the wall and a quick-running river passed behind the facility, swollen with rainwater from the recent downpours.  
The omnicopter buzzed forward. Chris shifted uncomfortably in the back, tugging at the uniform he wore.  
“Where in the gods' names did you get fucking UP uniforms?” he asked Jamie, who sat next to him.  
“From the Reactionaries,” Jamie replied, leaning forward. “Right before I stopped dealing with them. Never got around to selling them off.”  
“I heard a Reactionary force was airbombed the other day outside of Salt Lake City,” Ava said. “In the newspaper. There's not a lot of them left.”  
“Why I stopped dealing with them,” Jamie said.  
“Check your weapons,” Ptolemy said. “We're getting hailed.”  
“Unghosted vessel, identify yourselves immediately,” a voice said over a speaker in the front.  
“UP patrol out of Vermont,” Ptolemy answered. “Found this vessel abandoned on patrol. Command told us to fly it up here for scanning.”  
There was a moment of silence. “Is this the craft stolen from the pen out east?”  
“Must be,” Ptolemy answered. “Deghosted and everything.”  
“You're cleared to land,” the voice said.  
Ptolemy leaned forward and flicked a switch. Iceus began to guide the ship towards the landing platform. Ptolemy turned in the copilot seat. “Is everyone ready?”  
“Ready as I'll ever be,” Chris said.  
“Fuck it,” Jamie said. Ava nodded.  
Ptolemy checked his pistol. “We wait until we're in, then raise hell. Iceus, you know anything about this place.”  
Iceus shook his head. “Fuck no. Crashed the damn copter before I got in, didn't I?”  
“Just don't do that this time,” Jamie mumbled.  
Minutes later, they were landing on the platform atop the building. A squad of powersuiters was waiting. The five Half-Bloods slipped out of the omnicopter and lined up. A moment later, a hatch opened on the roof and a man in military uniform climbed out, bearing a UP crest on his breast and the marks of a captain on his shoulders. He was a middle-aged man with a lean face and hooked nose. He smiled at them as he came up. Ptolemy saluted, and the others were only a split second slower.  
“At ease,” the captain said, grinning. “I'm Captain Larking, head of military operations here. Must be a pretty important omni to have it delivered out to here.”  
“Half-Bloods helped with the theft,” Ptolemy spoke.  
“And comman wants us to dab the whole thing with tickers and hope we turn up identities or whereabouts,” the captain shook his head. “As if anyone else couldn't do that. Fuck. Alright, come on then. We'll give you some downtime here while we scrub it, get you out to HQ on the next bus.”  
“Sir,” Ptolemy said.  
They followed the captain down a ladder beneath the hatch. The ladder continued for much longer than they would have guessed. “Sir,” Ava asked, “how deep does this thing go?”  
“The facility is entirely underground, aside from the pad,” the captain said. “Do you know what this facility is?”  
“No sir,” Ava answered.  
They climbed out onto a steel catwalk overlooking a huge device. Something like the innards of a computer, but millions of times larger. Far below them, a strange device glowed. Catwalks criss-crossed the entire facility, all the way down. An eerie green glow suffused the air, which was only slightly warmer than ice.  
“This,” the captain spoke, his breath fogging in the air, “is our Glorious Leader's Think Tank.”  
He turned and led them down the catwalk. “Every technology that we use was dreamed up here, way down at the bottom. We used to be a prison, in the early days, keeping halfies. Now, though, we only house a few of them. The smart ones. We got them pumping ideas out to the scientists, who fabricate the plans. A smart system.”  
“How do you have Half-Bloods working for you?” Iceus growled. “Thought they all went rebel.”  
“Most did,” the captain nodded. “And, to be honest, the ones we have here are not quite here of their own accord. We have them under. The Eternal Leader built the Dream Engine to pull their dreams out and make sure they were understandable.”  
They were silent. “Can you imagine?” the captain asked. “Between you and me, I wouldn't want scientists rooting through my dreams. Although there'd be a few more busty Asian women in the world if they started fabricating what I dreamed about.”  
He chuckled and led them through a side door into a small office. There was enough room for a desk, a few chairs and little more. They had to squeeze in, Iceus' bulk leaving little space for anyone else. The captain sat down.  
“Guess I'll debrief you,” he said, “so that you can go and get some food and sleep, yeah? Alright, so, you are a patrol from Vermont. You found the omni ditched down there and were ordered to fly it to us for ticking?”  
“Those were our orders,” Ptoelmy nodded.  
“From who?” the captain asked.  
“Our superior,” Ptolemy answered.  
“Why didn't you hail codes upon entering our airspace?” the captain asked. Chris felt suddenly and very claustrophobic.  
“Several systems are damaged on the omni,” Ptolemy spoke. “We didn't want to risk that they had bugged the machine and would gain our hailing codes.”  
“Good initiative, preventing spies,” the captain nodded. “One last question.”  
“Sir,” Ptolemy responded.  
“What are your ranks and names?”  
Iceus moved with sudden quickness. In the cramped space, his arm reached across the intervening space between the captain and himself with little difficulty. The captain was thrown by the punch, and his head struck the wall with an explosive crack. The man's eyes went wide and he fell forward, the back of his head suddenly flat and bleeding. There was a thud as his head hit the desk. Everyone stared at Iceus.  
“Too much fucking talk,” he sniffed. “They're down at the bottom.”  
“That's one way to deal with things,” Jamie said. “Let's go.”  
Carefully, they left the office and shut the door behind them. In single file, they moved down the catwalk to an elevator on the far side. Piling in, they pressed a button to the bottom level.  
“I am guessing we have one minute, perhaps two at most, to gather them and get out,” Ptolemy said.  
“We are doing way more damage here than I thought we were going to be,” Ava said.  
“You heard what he said,” Jamie agreed. “This is where the Eternal leader gets all his tech.”  
Suddenly, the elevator ground to a halt. “My estimates may have been generous,” Ptolemy said, drawing his weapon. “They know.”  
The doors slid open. Without waiting, Ptolemy strode forward and fired three shots. Two of the six guards on the other side collapsed. Ptolemy vaulted the side of the catwalk to the next below just in time for the others to fall to the hail of gunfire from his fellow Half-bloods.  
On the next catwalk, he only fired one shot. He heard a thud as a guard who had been aiming at him was taken out by a shot from above. Ava dropped next to him, followed by the others. Floor by floor, they leapt from catwalk to catwalk. No matter how many guards they sent, they fell to the group of Half-bloods. The Eternal Leader had obviously never expected an attack on the facility, and had planned poorly for it.  
Soon enough, they stood on solid ground, the huge machine rising before them. There were four human-sized capsules before them, each plugged into a huge, humming orb in the center of the grouping. A collection of men and women in labcoats stared at them in shock. Iceus aimed at the nearest.  
“Open it,” he said.  
“We can't,” the scientist began, but was cut off as a gunshot blew through his chest into his heart. Iceus aimed at another.  
“Open the fucking thing!” he screamed. The scientists began typing furiously.  
There was a hiss, and the capsules swung open smoothly. Inside, the pods contained plastic moulds, like from the inside of toy packages. Each mould contained a person, shaved bald and covered in diodes, wires and intravenous needles. They were pale and emaciated and barely recognizeable, three men and one woman. Each wore only a loose shift that hid none of their starving frames. They looked to be in deep sleep.  
“Wake them up,” Iceus said.  
“We can't,” a scientist said. As Iceus switched aim, he held up his hands. “Not without waking up her first! It would drive them mad!”  
“Her?” Ptolemy asked. “Who is her?”  
The scientist pointed at the orb in the center of the device. “Project D. She keeps them in a mentally inventive state so the only dreams we get are useful. Snapping them away from her influence could kill them.”  
“Wake her up then,” Iceus said. “Then wake them up.”  
“You won't like it,” the scientist said. “She could kill us all. Some Half-bloods powers went a little off when everything happened.”  
“We've seen,” Chris said. “Do it.”  
The scientist swallowed and tapped several commands into a console. The orb suddenly whirred. A huge hatch on the side opened, and inside a camera-like aperature clicked wide. A second, smaller orb, about ten-feet wide, was contained within the first. The second orb slid out on an arm. It was glass and filled with a viscous, semi-transparent liquid. A dim shape floated within.  
“You won't like this,” the scientist repeated.  
“If you don't fucking do it, I'll fucking kill you and find someone who will,” Iceus roared. The scientist looked at his fellows and spun back to the console.  
Suddenly, the shape inside the fluid moved. The fluid began to drain, very slowly, through a pump on the inside of the tank. Soon, the shape was revealed to be a woman, or what was once one. Dark-skinned and shaved bald, her flesh was covered in metallic implants through which strange devices were attached. She wore metallic gloves and boots that were mounted onto her flesh. Her skin bore strange, mystic tattoos.  
“Holy shit,” Iceus blinked. “Is that...”  
“Isha,” a voice spoke from somewhere above them. “Yeah it is.”  
The group spun and looked up to see a face grinning at them from the catwalk above.  
Chris smiled down at them, looking ten-years younger and clean-shaven. He smiled mischievously. His right arm was made of glowing shards of glass and he bore none of the scars of the elder.  
“What?” he said. “No bow for your Eternal Leader?”


	8. REACTION 7_The Leader

REACTION SEVEN_The Leader

The Half-Bloods opened fire. Bullets screamed through the air, but the Eternal Leader simply grinned down at them. He leaned upon the catwalk's railing with cavalier disregard for the impending lead death that whistled towards him. The bullets struck, tearing holes through flesh and bone. The Eternal Leader spun with the force and collapsed. Blood dripped between the lattice-like gaps of the catwalk's floor.  
The bullets died down. Chris coughed. “Well, that was easy.”  
“Was it now?” an identical voice echoed.  
Above, the Eternal leader stood. Strange, dark tentacles roiled from his spine wrapping around the railing and lifting him up. His flesh was a pitted mess, muscle tissue and tendons hanging from weeping wounds. His face was a torn, fleshy pulp, white bone grinning with harsh intensity at the group below. His left eye was a juiced mess, leaking down a disintegrated cheek and squishing between exposed teeth. A skull-like visage grinned at them.  
“I never saw myself as easy,” the Eternal Leader said. “A bit of a flirt, maybe.”  
Before their eyes, the Leader's wounds began to close. Muscle and tendon reknit, skin regrew. Shattered bone set before their eyes. The pulped mess of his eye crept up his face and reconstructed inside the hollow of his skull. In moments, it was like nothing had happened. The tentacles upon the Leader's back flicked outwards and hugged his body, flattening, stretching and reforming. In a second, the Leader wore an oil-black suit with a collarless shirt. Across its surface, the faint image of a human eye pulled itself from the material, blinked, and then faded away. His cufflinks were eyes as well, that moved and gazed about.  
“You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?” the Leader chuckled. “I am immortal. I am a god. Bullets? Really? It's gonna take something a mite bigger than that.”  
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Iceus growled. He fired another shot. The Leader sighed and waved his hand. The bullet reformed in midair into a locust with a scorpion's tail. It buzzed over and landed on the Leader's shoulder.  
The Leader grinned at it. “I think we all got off on the wrong foot. I heard my old friend's were getting the band back together and I just had to hit the comeback tour.”  
“What do you want with us?” Ava asked.  
“I just wanted to see it with my own eyes,” the Leader let the locust crawl onto his finger. He lifted it to his ear and mimed listening. “What's that, Mr. Stingy? I should let them in on the secret. Oh, all right then. Only because you asked so nicely.”  
“What secret?” Jamie asked. He glanced around nervously. The scientists were very still, blinking as if in slow motion. “Something is very wrong here...”  
“Oh, just that I planned all this,” the Leader grinned. “See, I've been missing my friends. Olympus is gone and the world is falling apart and I am the only thing binding it altogether, right? I'm the new god. But every god needs his pantheon. But I can't go having rebels running around neither.”  
The locust crawled onto the Leader's face and moved around his ear. The Leader lowered his hand. “So I'm figuring out who is who. Who to turn into new gods and who to eliminate. So I set this up. Didn't it seem really easy? Escaping UP with important info? Breaking Iceus out of prison? All of it? I had been hoping you'd recruit a few more rebels before flying here, but beggars can't be choosers.”  
Chris swallowed. “What?”  
The Leader glared at him. “Did you not hear me, imposter? I set you up! I have waited ten fucking years for you fucking idiots to make a move and my patience has been stretched too far. I needed you dead. So I rigged this whole thing up. How do you think you are going to get out of this place when it's a crater like the camp?”  
“You'd blow up your own think tank?” Ptolemy said. “Kill all these loyal servants?”  
“Bah,” the Leader waved his hand. “Servants are expendable when you can just create new ones. Besides, the think tank will survive. The machine is indestructible.”  
The locust suddenly stopped on the Leader's ear and dove into the hole. The creature's tail disappeared and the Leader grinned. “Ten seconds, by the way. Then my nuke goes boom! Good luck!”  
“You'll die too!” Ava yelled.  
“You think that I give a shit about this body?” the Leader laughed. “This is an image, a reflection. An avatar. The real me is sipping mimosas and getting blown by a slavegirl. Eight seconds.” The Leader leaned back. The Half-bloods looked at one another and darted into movement. In perfect unison, they leapt forward, towards the pods. Each climbed on top of one of the thinkers and grappled for the tops of the capsules. Chris didn't move, and just glared up at the Leader.  
The Leader laughed. “Five seconds, five Half-bloods, four pods. The imposter chooses sacrifice.”  
One by one the pods swung shut with a hiss. Chris glared up at the Leader. The Leader frowned and leaned forward. “What, no clever retort? Three seconds,” he said.  
Chris crossed his arms and leaned back against the machine. He held up three fingers and lowered them.  
One.  
By.  
One.  
The explosion rocked the countryside for miles. The massive mushroom cloud could be seen as far away as New York. The news reports would claim that the Eternal Leader had eliminated a resistance cell with a preemptive attack.  
When the dust settled, the only thing remaining in the crater was the machine. The orb, the four pods and the consoles controlling them were scorched but undamaged. One by one, the pods opened and the Half-bloods within crawled out. They looked about, smelling the acrid stench of melted metal and burnt stone.  
“Oh my god,” Ava said.  
“I told you,” Jamie said, “I told you, we never should have come here.”  
“Fucking idiots, the lot of us,” Iceus replied, kicking a melted chunk of catwalk.  
Ptolemy looked about. “Where's Chris?”  
They spun about. “Oh my gods,” Ava said. “Oh my gods. He...”  
“I'm fine,” a voice echoed about.  
A glow appeared where Chris had stood before the blast. Tiny glowing particles moved about in a flash and a human form constructed itself from the ether, glowing as bright as the sun. In moments, Chris stood before them, completely bald and naked as the day he was born. He collapsed to his knees.  
“I haven't run that fast ever,” he said in a huff.  
“What just happened?” Jamie blinked. “What did you just do?”  
“When you approach lightspeed, your mass grows higher and you emit more energy,” Chris said. “Time slows, space distorts. If you run fast enough, you can punch right through basic temporal laws and quantum conceptualization.”  
“What does that mean?” Ava asked, averting her eyes.  
Chris glanced up at her. “When the event happened, some of us lost our powers, some of us kept them, and some of them changed. My limits are different now. What I can do is different now. No one around here will have to worry about nuclear fallout, for one thing.”  
Chris stood and stretched, the last few motes of light fading away around his body. “The Leader is alive. He's alive and he needs to be dead.”  
“Not to interrupt the naked man's rant,” Iceus said. “But where is Isha?”  
The group glanced towards the glass pod. It was shattered, the last dregs of fluid draining from it.  
“I was getting to that,” Chris said. “The Leader has her.”


	9. REACTION 8_The Couple

REACTION EIGHT_The Couple

The knock on the door came in that sweet, soft spot between “early enough” and “too late”. Joss and Emerald had already put the children to bed, but weren't quite ready to sleep themselves. They lay in bed, lamps on and books open before them. Street light filtered in through the half-open blinds on the far wall. They chatted idly, as most couples did before drifting off to sleep. They weren't expecting anybody, especially not at that hour, so when the door suddenly banged three times downstairs, they both jumped.  
“Who is that?” Em asked, shutting her book.  
“Whoever it is, they obviously don't know what a doorbell or phone is,” Joss replied, swinging his legs out of bed. He stretched and stood. “I'll get rid of them.”  
He walked out of the bedroom and into the dark hallway. He sped down the stairs, tugging his housecoat around his shoulders. Before him, light filtered through the crystalline shards of the front window, revealing several silhouetted forms on the other side. “Just a sec,” he said.  
“Hurry it the fuck up,” a voice replied. Joss stopped, his hand inches from the door knob. He swallowed.  
“Iceus?”  
“And others, yeah,” Chris' voice filtered through. “I am not currently wearing shoes or a shirt. Please let us in.”  
Joss leaned forward and peered through the edge of the window. He could just make out the edge of a hulking figure carrying another person over his shoulder. Joss swallowed and opened the door a crack.  
“What are you doing here?” he said.  
“We need help,” Ava's voice came in. “You're the expert.”  
Joss opened the door the rest of the way. Outside, he was met with a strange image. Ptolemy, Ava, Iceus and Jamie stood dressed in UP uniforms. Over their shoulders were four, pale figures, faces down. Behind them, Chris lay on the ground, wearing only a loose rag around his waist. His muscles twitched like some strange beast.  
“Expert on what?” Joss asked.  
“On sleep,” Ptolemy shifted the body on his shoulder. “They will not wake up. I know dreams, but I do not know sleep.”  
“I don't have my powers anymore,” Joss said.  
“We just need to talk,” Ava replied.  
A voice came from upstairs. “Joss, who's there?”  
Joss swallowed and glanced over his shoulder. “A few of them.”  
“Them?”  
Joss remained silent for a moment. He heard a sigh from upstairs.  
“Let them in, then,” Em said.  
Joss sighed and stood aside. The others crowded in. Joss coughed. “Bring them to the kitchen,” he said. “I'll make you some coffee and we can talk.”  
Moments later, they were in the kitchen. The four bodies were laid out on the floor, and Joss moved between them as the coffee maker bubbled. Em appeared in the kitchen doorway and leaned against it. She covered her mouth. “Oh my god,” she said. “Who are they?”  
“Edward, Flinn, Joe and Rose,” Chris said.  
Em glanced at him. “You're bald. And you don't have eyebrows.”  
“It's a long story,” Chris said.  
“He's quantumly disen-fucking-tangled,” Iceus said.  
Em shrugged. “Do you need pants?”  
Chris nodded. “Please.”  
Chris followed Em from the room. Joss kneeled and turned Flinn's face in his hands. “What happened to them?”  
“The Leader,” Ptolemy was taking apart his gun and laying it on the kitchen counter. “He was using them as a think tank.”  
“He means that literally,” Ava said. “The Leader was keeping them in tanks. Forcing them asleep. They were improperly disconnected and won't wake up.”  
“Improperly disconnected?” Joss asked.  
“Nuclear explosion,” Iceus growled.  
Joss stood. “I can't help them. I don't know why you brought them here. You're endangering my family. I need you to get out.”  
“Come on, Joss,” Iceus said. “You're the sleep guy. Just wake them the fuck up.”  
“I can't do anything,” Joss shrugged. “I'm sorry, but you have to leave.”  
Suddenly, Chris rounded the corner. He wore a pair of Joss' jeans and a plain white T-shirt. “You're lying, Joss.”  
Joss glanced up. “Quiet, Chris. You promised.”  
“Yeah,” Chris said, rubbing a hand over his head. “Yeah, I promised. But I lied. We need you, Joss. The world needs you. And that promise is standing in the way.”  
“I can't do it,” Joss whispered.  
“Because you hospitalized a few people?” Chris frowned. “You know as well as I do that that is not the worst thing that will happen if you don't. You want to save your family? Remember what I told you. Remember what I saw. Don't let down the memories people have of you. The hero of Camp Half-blood, vengeful and triumphant on Akakios. Tell them or I will.”  
Joss looked around. “I still have my powers. But they're worse. I can't do this.”  
Chris growled. “Coward. Akakios died for nothing if this is what he left behind.”  
Chris spun around and blurred off, the front door slamming in his wake. Joss glared back angrily. Upstairs, a tiny voice called down the stairs.  
“Mummy, Daddy, what was that?”  
Em and Joss shared a glance and Em ran off to deal with the problem. Joss looked down at the sleeping bodies on the floor.  
“What the fuck was that all about?” Iceus asked.  
“It's a long story,” Joss rubbed his eyes. “Someone should go find Chris before UP does.”  
Ava nodded and ran for the front door. Joss collapsed onto a stool. “I suppose I better tell you. I better tell you about the last time Chris came here.”  
“I'm guessing it doesn't end well?” Jamie asked.  
Joss shook his head. “A few years ago, Chris got into some real trouble. He was up in Canada, trying to find a few of us who went that way, and riled up some UP guys. After a while, Chris found his way here. He needed somewhere to hide out, and no one knew we were halfies, so we let him use the basement for a bit.”  
“Real Anne Frank,” Iceus grumbled. Ptolemy glanced at him.  
“One day, Chris gets into our liquor cupboard and has more than a little to drink,” Joss continued. “Well, we both did. I caught him, and then we wound up sharing. Both drinks and stories. Stories best left forgotten.”  
“I told him about my powers. After what happened, me and Em floated a bit. We were in this mall in North Carolina when UP caught up to us. Guns, tickers, the whole bit. They didn't have powersuits yet, though, which is what wound up screwing them over. I tried using my powers. Just a little, a bit of a knock out to give us time to escape.”  
Joss sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. “I didn't even realize how bad it was until I saw the old woman collapse. Her heart had given out from shock. See, I don't know what happened, but everyone in the place passed out. Worse than that, they were comatose. Truly comatose. Most of them are still in hospital beds. A few are dead. I'd lost control. My powers did their own thing. I was scared to use them after that.”  
Ptolemy leaned forward. “What about Chris? What did he tell you?”  
Joss' expression grew dark. “The worst thing you can possibly imagine.”  
“What's that?” Jamie asked.  
Joss looked up. “The Leader wins.”


	10. REACTION 9_The Future

REACTION NINE_The Future

Outside, the streetlights threw yellow pools upon the suburban street. Maple trees leaned red and gold over winding sidewalks. A light breeze rolled over the street, sending a few leaves spiralling towards earth in broad circles. Ava shivered. The chill night air of autumn burrowed deep into her skin. She glanced about.  
Across the street and a hundred yards down, Chris leaned against a streetlight. Ava glanced both ways and jogged over. Chris was placing a cigarette between his lips and lighting it with a match.  
“Where'd you get that?” Ava asked, slowing her approach.  
“Convenience store six blocks over,” Chris inhaled. “Don't worry, they didn't see me.”  
“Cigarettes will kill you,” Ava leaned on the opposite side of the streetlight.  
“Thanks for the concern, sis,” Chris blew streams of smoke from his nose. “They won't kill me, trust me. I know how I die.”  
They stood in silence. Across the street was a small park. A raccoon darted across the park towards a garbage can. Chris inhaled again.  
“What's going on with you, Chris?” Ava finally asked.  
“How do you mean?” Chris tapped the ash from the end of his cigarette and took another drag.  
“The homeless drifter bit, the obsession with fixing this, the powers,” Ava sighed. “The weird comments about the future. What's going on with you?”  
Chris frowned. “It's a long story.”  
“You don't get off that easily,” Ava replied.  
Chris frowned. “I don't want to talk about it.”  
“Or that easily.”  
“Fuck you,” Chris said. “Fuck this. No.”  
Ava turned her head. “What happened to you, Chris? I'm your sister. What happened?”  
Chris looked down and watched the movement of a beetle across the ground. “Are you sure you want to know? If you do, everything changes. Everything about this whole thing. Collecting the others, running around fucking with the Leader. The meaning of it all changes forever.”  
Ava crossed her arms. “Tell me. Now.”  
Chris sighed. “Do you remember the night it happened?”  
Ava shivered. “We all do. You know that.”  
Chris shut his eyes and turned his face towards the light. “The portal was above camp, roiling and turning and pulling everything in like a hurricane. The green lights in the sky and the ground. I could hear the screams. But the portal was too big, too out of control. All we had wanted to do was end the war, win our safety. This was too much. Everyone ran. Like children. The flames burned in the woods and the bodies littered the camp in stacks like firewood. And everyone ran.”  
Chris opened his eyes. “But I stared into the portal. I saw it. I realized what we had forgotten. A door opens both ways. While our world was pulled in, I saw him. Standing in the mouth of the portal and laughing. My worst nightmare. Since the very beginning, my worst dream was that the old me was still there, just beneath the skin, waiting to return. And there he was, laughing and escaping from dreamworld, so much worse than I could have imagined.”  
Chris dropped the cigarette. “Everyone ran away except me. I couldn't let this dream come true. We'd screwed up so much already, I couldn't let this part of me free. I ran towards him. Camp had become something different, some skewed and melted, dreamy reflection of what it once was. Part nightmare, part paradise. I stared up at the portal as he descended on beams of light and ready myself to fight him, but he didn't even notice me. I couldn't move. It was like the air had become solid. And then, in the portal, there were other things.”  
Ava glanced about. She felt like she was being watched, but there was nothing there. “What things?”  
“The nightmares,” Chris said. “The real nightmares. The bad dreams everyone shares. The primordial fears. The things from which every evil thought springs. The Beasts in the Darkness. The monomyth's answer to fear itself.”  
“What were they?” Ava hugged her arms tight to herself.  
Chris shook his head. “Eyes and darkness and claws and roiling tentacles and teeth and maws and nothing and chaos. There are no words for what they were. No description for the terror I felt. And I saw him, the other me, look up at the portal. The Beasts tried to pull their way through but were too huge, too evil. The portal contained them. And the other me grinned and kissed his fingers and held them up. I heard him promise them. I heard him...”  
“Heard him what?” Ava asked.  
“He told them that he would free them,” Chris said. “That he would turn the earth into an engine for their release, a playground for their tortures. He promised them.”  
“We'll stop him,” Ava placed a hand on Chris' shoulder. “We will. We took his think tank. We...”  
Chris glared at her. “I am not done. Not by far. The Beasts pulled away, knowing their time would come and the portal collapsed. Do you remember that explosion? Like a thousand nuclear bombs...a million. The shockwave the whole world heard. Something happened in that moment. Dreams came true, for good or ill. My dream came true.”  
“What dream?”  
Chris breathed deeply. “My whole life, all I wanted was to have my limits remove. To be as fast as I wanted to be. And it happened. My limits were gone and I saw this explosion and I was sure to be killed and I just ran. As fast as I could. And there was no such thing anymore.”  
“I flew right past lightspeed without even thinking twice,” Chris continued. “Something happens on the other side of light. I wasn't thinking. My body became something else in that space...energy, pure mass, I don't know. And on the other side of light, time wasn't the same. Space wasn't the same. I was everywhere. Everywhen. I knew every version of the past, the present, the future. Every permutation of every event that had ever occurred. I witnessed the infinite births and infinite deaths of the universe. And I knew something. The Leader wins. He wins. The Beasts come and the world I saw after that is something more hellish than I could describe. Where humans are bred to feel terror and feed the things in the dark their fear. Its something more awful than the worst nightmare anyone has ever had.”  
Ava was silent for a moment. “Then what are you doing? If we're destined to lose, why try?”  
Chris shook his head. “Every time I run that fast it becomes a little harder for me to remember when and where I'm supposed to be. I can never quite remember what I saw or what I know, because if I do, I'm in that time too and I become thinner and thinner until I know everything but can't help. I'd just be an observer, in all points of history, in all places, unable to help. But I know there is a way to stop him. I just don't remember what that way is. One chance. One option. Our only hope.”  
Ava blinked. “You're faking it all, aren't you?”  
Chris nodded. His voice became suddenly flat. “Being human. Emotion. All of it is just reflections of something I was. I wear the mask for others, but it is not what I am. I am something else now. Just speed and hate. That is all.”  
Ava nodded. “I'm so sorry.”  
“It was my idea, to open the portal,” Chris said. “My plan. We just wanted peace. We wanted to stop killing one another. Look what our peace has bought.”  
Down the street, the door to Joss and Em's house opened and Jamie leaned out. He waved. Ava and Chris exchanged a glance. Ava touched his shoulder again, but felt no reaction. She sighed and turned and walked away.  
Chris put out the still burning cigarette with his bare foot and followed.


	11. REACTION 10_The Dreamers

REACTION TEN_The Dreamers

The kitchen had a strange air of anticipation latent in the atmosphere. So many bodies in such a small space had given it a dank sense of claustrophobia, and the unspoken words among the group brought a loaded but silent energy into the mix. When Ava and Chris re-entered the space, they knew something had changed.  
“What's up?” Ava asked nervously.  
Joss glanced up. He rubbed his chin. “They're waking up.”  
“What?” Chris said.  
“I can sense it,” Joss said. “Its not me you needed. You just needed time.”  
Everyone glanced down at the still forms on the floor. The coffee maker sat silent and full. Joss stood, gathered mugs from a cupboard and began filling them. “There's milk in the fridge,” he said as he poured.  
“How long will it take?” Chris asked.  
Joss shrugged. “Any minute.”  
Suddenly, and in unison, the four sleeping figures opened their eyes. They breathed deeply and sat up in unison, then pulled themselves to their feet. They looked about in silence. Jamie cleared his throat. Ava stepped forward.  
“Uh, hey guys,” she said.  
“We are fine,” they spoke in unison. “We require paper and pens, or equivalents.”  
“Uh, Joss,” Iceus spoke. “What the fuck is wrong with them?”  
Joss shrugged. Ptolemy drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “They have lived in each other's dreams for too long. It will take them a long time to become unstuck.”  
“Do you know where you are?” Joss asked.  
“We are uncertain,” they spoke. “We require paper and pens, or equivalents.”  
“Why?” Chris asked.  
“For designs,” they said.  
There was a silence in the air, different from before. This silence was cold and calculated. For years, these four had been designing weapons for the Leader.  
“What sort of design?” Jamie asked.  
“We know what has been happening,” the Thinkers spoke. “We know. Not all of our thoughts went to the Leader. Not all our dreams are there. We have a way, we know a plan. But we need designs and we need help.”  
“What are you designing?” Joss asked.  
The Thinkers looked skyward. “A way to return powers to those who have lost them.”  
The room was silent. Jamie swallowed and spoke. “With that, we could give Ptolemy his powers back, generate a new Dream Engine, send the Leader back where he belongs!”  
Iceus stood. “I could have my fucking powers back and really star packing a fucking punch, right?”  
Ptolemy frowned. “We have no reason to believe that if we did have a Dream Engine, that we wouldn't just bring back Olympus exactly as we left it, war and all.”  
Chris stepped forward. “Joss told you what I know?”  
The others lowered there heads. Iceus spoke. “Fucking darkness and all.”  
“If there is a hope that we might survive and stop the Leader before he can pull this off...we should do it, shouldn't we?”  
Ptolemy looked up. “Remember what happened last time?”  
“We know better now,” Chris replied.  
Ptolemy glanced at the Thinkers. “You said you needed help. Who do you need?”  
The Thinkers were silent for a moment, and then spoke. “Leo Valdez.”  
The room knew a new silence now. A hopeless silence. A full silence. Iceus shook his head. “Leo is dead. Just like Percy and Jason and Annabeth and all the other big ones.”  
“None of them are,” Ava disagreed. “I heard that Percy was spotted two years ago in Yellowstone.”  
“And I heard that he and Annabeth were living peacefully in Texas,” Joss said.  
“Yeah,” Iceus growled. “And in prison I'd fucking heard Jason had moved to France and was now the mayor of some fucking town near Paris. Don't fucking mean it is true. The fucking Leader the killed the fucking lot of them.”  
Jamie coughed. “Leo is alive.”  
Iceus turned. “Then where is he? Leading a resistance movement? Holed up in a cave somwhere?”  
“Both of those things, actually,” Jamie replied.  
Everyone was silent, waiting for an explanation. Jamie looked about. “Back when I worked with the Reactionaries, I heard about him,” Jamie explained. “He's running a manufactory, but I have no idea where. Designing and building the tech that the Reactionaries use to fight the Leader. The exosuits and stuff. No one knows his whereabouts except for the other leaders of the Reactionaries. His lieutenants.”  
“This helps us how?” Chris asked.  
“We know one of them,” Jamie explained. “One of the lieutenants. Although you guys may not be so happy about who it is.”  
“Don't you fucking say it, you fucking stoner, fucking piece-of-shit, fucking cunt,” Iceus shot to his feet.  
“It's Zach, alright,” Jamie shrugged.  
Iceus punched the table. The whole room seemed to shake. “That fucking cunt. Fucking power-stealing asshole. Left me to fucking die in a fucking hole. Fuck him. I'll rip his head off if I see him, I fucking swear it.”  
Ava swallowed. “Is he really our best option?”  
“I cut ties with the Reactionaries, but Zach and I still have radio contact,” Jamie shrugged. “He'd help us, if he knew the stakes.”  
“Fuck this,” Iceus said. “I ain't doing it.”  
“We need,” began the Thinkers, but Iceus waved a hand.  
“Balls to what you need,” Iceus said. “Next time I see Zach Winters, I'll rape his corpse.”  
Iceus turned and stormed out of the room towards the front hall. Ptolemy sighed.  
“We just set a known sociopath out upon a suburban neighbourhood,” he said.  
“He'll cool down before he gets to any children,” Chris said. He glanced at Jamie. “How can we get ahold of Zach?”  
“There's a radio signal. We can broadcast out, set up a meeting.” Jamie tapped a finger against the side of his nose. “We'll need to get rid of the uniforms, though. Reactionaries shoot first and ask questions later.”  
Chris nodded. “Zach gets us to Leo Valdez, Leo helps these guys, we get Ptolemy his powers back, build a new Dream Engine and fix this whole thing,” he glanced at Ava. “This might be it. The one way.”  
Ava nodded. Joss looked around. “I guess that means we have house guests while you sort this out?”  
“If you'd be so kind,” Ava replied.  
Joss ipped his coffee. “Whatever you want. We are family...”


	12. REACTION 11_The Lieutenant

REACTION ELEVEN_The Lieutenant

The factory was loud, hot and smelt of fish. It came by this honestly. It was a fish packing plant, a place where they packaged tuna and salmon into cans for eventual use in kitchens the world over. Two hundred people worked the factory floor at any one time, manning huge machines or driving forklifts to pack crates of cans into trucks off of a loading dock. The sounds of a busy harbour rolled in from outsides through windows high above the factory floor.  
It had taken Jamie two days to contact Zach, and it had taken the group close to three days to travel south from New York to the factory. From outside, the building was a monolithic, red-brick block. There were other factories along the harbour, each shipping their own wares upon nearby ocean liners. The sound of the port was a cacophonous combination of ship engines, trucks and people. The air smelt of gasoline and brine.  
The Half-bloods looked about as they climbed out of the back of a white van that Joss had rented for them. Of all who had been gathered, only Chris, Ava, Ptolemy and Zach had been sent to meet Zach. Joss and Em had remained home to care for their children and the Thinkers. Iceus, on the other hand, hadn't returned after leaving. A part of each of them wondered when the first newspaper stories would turn up, but so far there had been only silence.  
Jamie tugged his jacket against the chill of the port. “He should be here soon. He said noon.”  
“Why here?” Ava asked.  
“It's where we send the refugees from,” Jamie replied. “On the ships out to Africa. The Reactionaries own the cannery there.”  
He nodded towards the monolithic red brick. A sign upon its roof read “Olympus Cans, Inc.” Chris chuckled grimly.  
“A little on the nose, isn't it?” he said.  
Jamie shrugged. “I suppose.”  
A bay door slid open on the cannery. A man stretched in the opening. He wore a puffy, orange coat over green rubber coveralls and heavy work boots. He tugged off his gloves with his teeth and shoved them in a pocket. He had a thick blonde beard and long, shaggy blonde hair. One of his eyes was covered in an eyepatch and the matching side of his mouth was a twisted, permanent grin. He waved over at them. Chris glanced at the others and together they jogged over.  
Zach nodded at them. “Holy Christ,” he said. “There's a lot of you.”  
Ava blinked up. “You dyed your hair.”  
Zach placed his hands on his hips. “My face is on a wanted list or two. Well, if you're coming in, come in.”  
Zach turned and walked into the factory. One by one, the others climbed into the bay. The other side was a large, icy chamber, cooled for the sake of the fish. Stacks of crated cans formed rows along the entire place. Zach closed the bay door behind them.  
Everyone was silent for a moment. Chris reached into a pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. As he pulled one from the pack and placed it between his lips, he spoke. “Jamie told you why we're here?”  
Zach nodded. He reached into his pocket and tossed Chris a lighter. “Leo Valdez. What makes you think I know how to find a ghost?”  
“Do not play us for fools,” Ptolemy said. “We know he is associated with the Reactionaries. And we know that you are too.”  
Zach scratched his nose. “What makes you think I can get you to him, then?”  
Chris lit the cigarette. He pulled a breath. “We have a way to end this, once and for all. We can get Ptolemy his powers back, build a new Dream Engine, send the Leader back where he belongs. But we need Leo's help to build the machines.”  
Zach nodded. “Okay. Alright. But what will you give me in return?”  
“We haven't seen you in years and you want us to pay you?” Ava asked. “I thought you were a freedom fighter. I thought you'd be happy to end this.”  
Zach leaned against the wall. “I am, I really am. But you're a child of Mercury. You should no better than anyone that everything has a price. We forgot that with the Dream Engine, and look how that turned out.”  
“We have nothing to give,” Jamie shrugged. “Well, I've got a solid harvest back home, but I doubt you want a few hundred pounds of kush.”  
Chris glanced over in shock. “A few hundred pounds?”  
Jamie shrugged. “Autumn did good for me. Year round profits with her little pocket of summer, too.”  
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Autumn?”  
Jamie waved a hand. “Tree person now. Part of the eternal monomyth of Mother Nature or something like that.”  
Zach shrugged. “I've seen stranger. You hear about Keith?”  
Chris shook his head. “Last I heard he was off of Alaska.”  
Zach nodded. “He is literally a wave now. A living ocean current. We hear from him time to time off the boats. Says he's part of the unified myth of the ocean. Sounds a lot like what's going on with Autumn.”  
Ptolemy sighed. “Perhaps all of this will fix them.”  
“If they even want fixing,” Jamie replied. “Autumn seemed pretty happy as a pseudo-god.”  
“Back on point,” Zach said. “I don't want money or things. What I want is for you to do a job for me. If I send you to Leo, you have to do something for me.”  
Ava raised her eyebrows. “Like what?”  
“We need to get a message into New York City,” Zach said. “We have plans for a big offensive push on the Unified State Building, but my men here are being watched, my usual couriers. They can get from small town to small town, but not past the city walls.”  
“And you think that we can,” Jamie replied. “A bunch of Half-bloods. The tickers would explode if we got within a hundred feet..”  
“I only need one of you to go in,” Zach said. “It'll be a two hour detour on the way back to Em and Joss' place. All you need to do is hand off a USB stick to the right person and turn right around.”  
The others looked at one another. Chris shrugged. “We need Leo.”  
“And I need this message sent,” Zach said. “A perfect transaction.”  
“Fine,” Ava said. “We'll do it. One of us will find a way into New York. Now bring us to Leo.”  
Zach grinned. “Excellent. Come with me.”  
Zach led them between rows of canned fish. There was frost on the ground. At the far side of the room were a row of metal doors, like those on industrial freezers. Zach opened one and gestured for the others to enter.  
Inside was a small, cell-like room beyond, filled with unprocessed fish. Tuna stared out from shelves in rows. Chris blanched.  
“Is this really how you store these things?” he asked.  
Zach shook his head. “Of course not. It's just a good cover.”  
“A cover for what?”  
Zach waved his hand. The frost on the floor was kicked up as though in a strong wind, revealing a steel panel on the floor. “No one sees a secret door in a fish room.”  
Zach knelt and placed his hands on the panel. Ice crept along his fingertips in a webwork. It bound his hands to the steel like a wet tongue to a pole in winter. Carefully, he lifted his hands. The panel shifted, and he dropped it to the ground. Beneath the panel, a ladder descended into tar-black darkness.  
Zach waved a hand into the shadows. “Follow the yellow brick road. The wizard's waiting for you in Emerald City.”


End file.
